Impact of Vertigo and Spatial Disorientation on Concurrent Cognitive Tasks
Abstract
Disorientation may draw attention from other activities and its impact on cognition may cause pilot error and problems of concentration in dizzy patients. Tasks used to study the impact of disorientation include number processing, intelligence scales and Brookes matrices (reproduction of 2xD patterns of numbers vs. nonsensical sentences), and Stroop tasks to probe selective effects on spatial versus verbally‐loaded tasks. This variety of tasks has been used to evaluate cognitive performance in numerous scenarios, including visual‐vestibular mismatch, vection, spinning, coriolis, balancing, and flight maneuvers. A meta‐analysis provides an overview of how spatial disorientation may affect cognition: Substantial individual differences in managing disorientation are to be expected; errors on cognitive tasks occur during the first few experiences of a disorienting situation and subjects rapidly learn to “ quarantine ” this “novelty effect”; familiarity with and practice on a test gives protection against disorientation; task performance continues to suffer if the protagonist is unaware of disorientation; with disorientation that demands external resolution (e.g., interpretation of instruments) the subject must learn to switch priority to the cognitive task; there is a moderate preferential impact of disorientation on spatial tasks; anxiety of real situations probably exacerbates the impact of disorientation.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit formation
Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908) · Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology · doi:10.1002/cne.920180503 · Cited by 6,911 · see citing works
“Stops walking when talking” as a predictor of falls in elderly people
Lundin‐Olsson, L., Nyberg, L., & Gustafson, Y. (1997) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(97)24009-2 · Cited by 960 · see citing works
Attentional demands for static and dynamic equilibrium
Lajoie, Y., Teasdale, N., Bard, C., & Fleury, M. (1993) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/bf00228824 · Cited by 712 · see citing works
The Suppression of Visualization by Reading
Brooks, L. R. (1967) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1080/14640746708400105 · Cited by 503 · see citing works
On the cognitive penetrability of posture control
Teasdale, N., Bard, C., Larue, J., & Fleury, M. (1993) · Experimental Aging Research · doi:10.1080/03610739308253919 · Cited by 398 · see citing works
Cognitive spatial processing and the regulation of posture.
Kerr, B., Condon, S. M., & McDonald, L. A. (1985) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance · doi:10.1037//0096-1523.11.5.617 · Cited by 369 · see citing works
Visual vertigo: Symptom assessment, spatial orientation and postural control
Guerraz, M. (2001) · Brain · doi:10.1093/brain/124.8.1646 · Cited by 369 · see citing works
Cognitive spatial processing and the regulation of posture.
Kerr, B., Condon, S. M., & McDonald, L. A. (1985) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance · doi:10.1037/0096-1523.11.5.617 · Cited by 253 · see citing works
Simulator based rehabilitation in refractory dizziness
Pavlou, M., Lingeswaran, A., Davies, R. A., Gresty, M. A., & Bronstein, A. M. (2004) · Journal of Neurology · doi:10.1007/s00415-004-0476-2 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
Self-citationEffects of spatial and nonspatial cognitive activity on postural stability
Maylor, E. A., Allison, S., & Wing, A. M. (2001) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1348/000712601162211 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Yardley, L. (2001) · Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry · doi:10.1136/jnnp.71.1.48 · Cited by 191 · see citing works
Characterization of stress reactions to the Stroop Color Word Test
Tulen, J. H. M., Moleman, P., van Steenis, H. G., & Boomsma, F. (1989) · Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior · doi:10.1016/0091-3057(89)90204-9 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
Factors associated with pilot error in aviation crashes.
Li, G., Baker, S. P., Grabowski, J. G., et al. (2001) · PubMed · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Increasing cognitive load with increasing balance challenge: recipe for catastrophe
Barra, J., Bray, A., Sahni, V., et al. (2006) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/s00221-006-0519-2 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Posture and mental task performance when viewing a moving visual field
Ehrenfried, T., Guerraz, M., Thilo, K. V., Yardley, L., & Gresty, M. A. (2003) · Cognitive Brain Research · doi:10.1016/s0926-6410(03)00088-0 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Self-citationDyscalculia in Patients with Vertigo
Risey, J. A., & Briner, W. (1990) · Journal of Vestibular Research · doi:10.3233/ves-1990-1104 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
Cognitive Impairment by Spatial Disorientation
Gresty, M. A., Golding, J. F., Le, H., & Nightingale, K. (2008) · Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine · doi:10.3357/asem.2143.2008 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Self-citationVisual-vestibular control of posture and gait: Physiological mechanisms and disorders
Bronstein, A. M., & Guerraz, M. (1999) · Current Opinion in Neurology · doi:10.1097/00019052-199902000-00002 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Gresty, M. A., Waters, S. B., Bray, A., Bunday, K. L., & Golding, J. F. (2003) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2003.10.013 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Self-citationPrevic, F. H., Kenyon, R. V., Boer, E. R., & Johnson, B. H. (1993) · Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/bf03206941 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Trends in spatial disorientation research.
Previc, F. H., & Ercoline, W. R. (2001) · PubMed · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Head movement measurements in relation to spatial disorientation and vestibular stimulation.
Wh, J. (1956) · PubMed · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Motion sickness: more than nausea and vomiting
Lackner, J. R. (2014) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/s00221-014-4008-8 · Cited by 314 · see citing works
“During severe motion sickness, although many manual performance and cognitive tasks are substantially impaired (Gresty et al. 2008; Gresty and Golding 2009), simple detection tasks such as the perceptual vigilance task (PvT) seem relatively unaffected (Kaplan et al.”
BackgroundDissociated motor learning and de-adaptation in patients with functional gait disorders
Lin, D., Castro, P., Edwards, A., Sekar, A., Edwards, M. J., Coebergh, J., Bronstein, A. M., & Kaski, D. (2020) · Brain · doi:10.1093/brain/awaa190 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gresty, M. A., & Golding, J. F.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Gresty, Michael Andrew
- ORCID
- Golding, John Foster
- Venue
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2009-05
- Volume
- 1164
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 263-267
- ISSN
- 0077-8923 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-6632
- OpenAlex
- W2086676908
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 0.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Vestibular and auditory disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Spaceflight effects on biology
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Keywords
- vertigo, spatial disorientation, cognitive performance, pilot error, Stroop task, number processing, visual-vestibular mismatch, vection, Coriolis effect, novelty effect, anxiety, individual differences
- MeSH terms
- Workforce, Anxiety, Aviation, Cognition, Confusion, Humans, Spatial Behavior, Vertigo, Case-Control Studies
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
